January/February 2019 I61
over communication from all the
PDUs downstream to maintain
remote monitoring. Considering
that customers can spend anywhere
around $200 to $275 per networking
port, a robust IP consolidation
capability truly brings in
additional savings.
2. CENTRALIZE AND
COLLECT CRITICAL DATA
It is important to have a centralized
application that will collect the
critical parameters from all the
PDUs, allow setting of thresholds
and sending a proactive notification
of any impending issues. The
application should also provide a
consolidated dashboard view that
quickly depicts the status of all the
cabinets within the data center for
the administrators within a network
operations center. Redundancy
monitoring reports for all cabinets
should also be available to ensure
availability of power when one
of the power chain sides is being
brought down for maintenance.
FIGURE 5: Fully integrating
intelligent PDUs with
DCIM software allows the
data center manager to
optimize site performance,
track usage against known
capacity, test failover
capability and identify areas
for improvement from a
simple, yet elegant interface.
Unlike basic or metered
PDUs, intelligent
PDUs have a network
connection that can be
remotely monitored,
automate collection
of data and share
that data with
DCIM software.
3. BALANCE POWER LOADS
AT THE CABINET LEVEL
Intelligent PDUs help optimize usage
of upstream electrical infrastructure.
Equipment, such as uninterruptible
power supplies (UPS), floor PDUs
and power panels, require capital
expenditure. Full capacity utilization
of such equipment through balanced
loads helps defer capital expenditure.
The easiest way to ensure balanced
loads across the data center is to
balance at the lowest common
denominator, which happens to be
the cabinet. Intelligent PDUs provide
information about the loading at the
cabinet level.
Most importantly, the key to
effective capacity planning is to have
an application that will provide a
percentage loading report as well as
the absolute loading value for all
cabinets and easily put such
information at the data center
manager’s fingertips. A complete
DCIM tool may also help perform
“what if analysis” that will allow
modelling of capacities at all levels
against existing consumption and
the extra room available.
4. MONITOR AT THE
OUTLET LEVEL
Ask any data center manager,
and one of the justifications for
purchasing intelligent PDUs is also
to improve operational efficiencies
through reduction in energy
consumption of IT equipment.
The fundamental enabler of this
benefit is outlet-level metering
provided by many intelligent
PDUs today. Making this data
really meaningful requires an
application that allows grouping of
outlets across the PDUs to provide
historical energy consumption
reports for the groups or individual
equipment. These reports help data
center operators identify ghost
(unused) servers, pick up appropriate
servers for virtualization and, most
importantly, provide visibility into
the overall energy consumption that
further enables power charge back
reports and brings accountability to
the actual users of the data.